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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27553639">An Abridged List of the Reasons Why Stiles Stilinski Loves Derek Hale</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily'>wirewrappedlily</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Some hurt/comfort, and Stiles can be a nice thing...when he wants to be, improper use of post-its</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:28:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27553639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone gave Stiles hot pink post-it notes. </p>
<p>Derek comes to appreciate this person.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>293</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>An Abridged List of the Reasons Why Stiles Stilinski Loves Derek Hale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/giidas/gifts">giidas</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>You make me coffee every morning.</i>
</p>
<p>The nearly-illegible scrawl on the hot-pink sticky note on the coffee maker takes a minute to register for Derek Hale; uncaffeinated as he is. </p>
<p>Stiles is still in bed--doesn't have to get out of bed for another two hours, and if Derek isn't severely regretting agreeing to the morning shift at work every time he thinks about Stiles still warm and soft with sleep, then he's dead. Stiles first thing in the morning is...special; a gift that Derek feels like only he gets, every day. </p>
<p>It was a blessing on top the blessings Derek had already been given, when they mutually cracked and told the other how much they liked slowly coming into themselves, wrapped in each other's arms. </p>
<p>Stiles was tactile with him always; cuddling happened more often than not when they weren't in the midst of some sort of crisis. But there was something about starting a day, no matter how mundane, wrapped up in Stiles's arms that gave Derek a centre like nothing else. </p>
<p>Derek drinks his coffee as he sets about getting everything ready for Stiles--so that all he has to do, once he's finally called from the downy couch, is press a button. </p>
<p>It hits him, then. Derek makes Stiles his first cup of coffee every morning, whether he's there to share it with Stiles or not. And Stiles only ever drinks all of his coffee when it's coffee Derek has made. </p>
<p>That last bit gives him pause, because Derek has watched Stiles order the most ridiculous and elaborate drinks he can think of...and, when he really thinks about it, Stiles only ever seems to get through maybe two-thirds of his ridiculous and elaborate and extortionately expensive drink. </p>
<p>"Huh." </p>
<p>~</p>
<p><i>You let me take care of you, even when you don't want to.</i> </p>
<p>Derek frowns at the sticky note on the ice pack he favours, Stiles's babbling still coming from where Derek has firmly planted him in the bathroom. </p>
<p>It's Stiles that needs the care this time, and Derek hates that--and Stiles knows that Derek hates it. </p>
<p>"You should really get in this shower with me, Hale. I could...suddenly get dizzy and fall over. Head wounds do that." </p>
<p>Derek grunts at that, shoving the freezer closed. "You're not showering, you idiot. I have to see if you need stitches; and if you do, you're in for a sponge bath and nothing more." </p>
<p>"If I located a candy-striper costume..."</p>
<p>"I'll strangle you with it." </p>
<p>Derek comes around the doorway to the bathroom, catching Stiles giving a nod to that which leaves him unsteady on his seat on the toilet. The blood matting his hair and dripped down his pale skin makes Derek's stomach clench, makes his instinct to protect surge so closely under the surface of his skin that it's a miracle he can keep control of the wolf, even with all the training of having always been one. </p>
<p>Derek crouches in front of Stiles once he's wet a rag, and carefully cleans off the debris from the scrapes on Stiles's hands, setting the ice pack between them when he's done, and Stiles lets out a slip of relieved breath when he does, because Derek knows that Stiles's hands probably hurt more than his head does--or, at least, his hands hurting like this is newer and more pressing, since Stiles's headaches aren't rare. </p>
<p>"Are you okay? Don't lie." Stiles asked as Derek stood and gathered close to try to carefully clean away some of the blood and get at the wound. </p>
<p>Stiles presses his face into Derek's hip with a small sigh, and he hesitates for only a second before looping his arm around Derek's legs to hold him there. </p>
<p>The jeans beneath Stiles's face are caked with dirt and spattered with blood, but Stiles needs to hold onto him, Derek knows; needs to have a touchstone, somewhere, of them being together at the end of it, and being alright just for being together. </p>
<p>"I'm fine. Though that spell has left the worst taste in my mouth." </p>
<p>Stiles lets out an answering chirp of disgust, not moving his head as Derek carefully works through his hair to get a good look at where Stiles had been hit. </p>
<p>"Looks shallow." Derek murmurs. </p>
<p>"I..." Stiles starts, and stops. It's all Derek really needs in order to know what Stiles wants to ask for, but can't. </p>
<p>Derek wants to tell him that Stiles can absolutely spend the next several days lying on top of Derek, fighting through the anxiety that Derek had once again gotten cursed and Stiles was human and had gotten hurt trying to save him. Stiles had always wanted to be the thing standing between those he loves, and the things that would hurt them. And it's an increasingly hard fight for Stiles, not to give in to the urge to just have-done and take the bite; to fight his own worry and anxiety that he can't protect them. </p>
<p>"Not tonight, because I sleep best when you do that, and we both know you're not quite out of the woods in terms of concussion, so I need to be awake every few hours to wake you." Derek negotiated, "But tomorrow? All this week? Absolutely. I'll call in sick to work, even. I don't think the boss will mind." </p>
<p>Derek owns his shop, so he's nominally the boss (though only nominally: he hired well when he hired his receptionist, and she will one day rule the world if he's not careful), and Stiles snorts at that assertion. </p>
<p>Derek strokes his thumb along the cut of Stiles's cheekbone, and Stiles looks up at him. Sliding from Stiles's loose embrace, Derek ducks down, stealing a slow, easy kiss. </p>
<p>"Your mouth tastes fine to me." Stiles tells him when they part, and Derek chuckles. Stiles's fingers trace at Derek's jaw, cold with the ice pack and just a little damp still, fingertips catching at Derek's beard. "Can we kiss until the taste goes away for you?" </p>
<p>Derek presses his lips to Stiles's forehead, leeching his pain as he does, and Stiles gives a token mew of protest, but doesn't actually voice the words. "I'd like nothing more." </p>
<p>~</p>
<p>Derek's cleaning out his closet when he finds the next note, tucked in the pocket of his old leather jacket. </p>
<p><i>You made me feel safe, even then.</i> </p>
<p>Derek sits heavily on the end of their bed, his mouth curling slowly into a smile at the memory of Stiles in that patrol car, insisting that he wasn't afraid of Derek. And his scent, now that Derek knows him as well as he does, hadn't been scared <i>of</i> him. It'd been scared of why he wasn't scared. </p>
<p>"Is it ritual closet day?" Stiles asks from the front door, audibly struggling with something in his arms. </p>
<p>"Yes." Derek answers, going to Stiles like he's magnetized--and not a second too soon, as the ill-advised third grocery bag stuffed into Stiles's arms starts to slip.</p>
<p>Stiles grins his thanks as Derek takes two of the bags off his hands, and when groceries are securely placed where they probably won't all fall to the floor, Stiles reels Derek in for his hello kiss. Of course, as is par for the course with all Stiles’s hello-kisses, Derek has to be the one to keep it from progressing much further, for the sake of the perishables in Stiles’s haul. </p>
<p>“So we’re gonna have our ritual burning of all the shirts you’ll finally admit being beyond saving due to bloodstains?” </p>
<p>Derek narrows his eyes at the tinge of innocence in Stiles’s tone, “You bought marshmallows, didn’t you?” </p>
<p>Stiles squeaks, and flees, Derek on his heels, already laughing even as he tried to sound stern. </p>
<p>“We agreed no more marshmallows! You gorge on them and then get sick for like a day and a half!” </p>
<p>Stiles lets out a high-pitched squeal as Derek’s fingers brush his arm in their chase through the apartment, and then Stiles is in flight: leaping like a gazelle to land in a pile of long limbs on their bed, grinning maniacally. </p>
<p>There's a challenge in Stiles's eyes, and his teeth worry his lower lip in just that way...and the perishables could wait, really, couldn't they? </p>
<p>~</p>
<p>
  <i>You understand me when no one else does.</i>
</p>
<p><i>You don't make me feel bad about being me.</i> </p>
<p><i>Your laugh is the greatest thing.</i> </p>
<p>Derek has been keeping the sticky notes, of course. </p>
<p>He doesn't want to; doesn't even intend to--but when he went to remove the first one, it'd ended up safely tucked in his bedside drawer...and they all had. </p>
<p><i>You trust me.</i> </p>
<p><i>You're too clever for your own good.</i> </p>
<p><i>You don't put up with my bullshit, but you do handle my baggage.</i> </p>
<p><i>You still look a little surprised when I kiss you in public.</i> </p>
<p><i>You show us all how to be strong, even if we're crumbling.</i> </p>
<p><i>You'll fall apart in my arms.</i> </p>
<p><i>You put me back together.</i> </p>
<p>Stiles tends to try to avoid the physical: Derek is aware that Stiles knows just how thoroughly Derek's gotten good, over the years, of using his looks as a weapon. Stiles also knows that he hates it, and would rather anything else. </p>
<p>Stiles worked, for years, to untangle Derek's trauma. He may still be working on it; Derek knows that Stiles laid out the plan when Derek confronted him about it, but he cannot for the life of him remember whether it was supposed to be five years or seven--let alone the minutiae of the layers to it. </p>
<p>Derek wants to return the love that Stiles gives to him...that Stiles lets him drown himself in. But he's not...He doesn't have the words? </p>
<p>No, he does. But they aren't good enough; none of them are. </p>
<p>There's no way to quantify what it's like to wake up to a steady heartbeat in his ears; to know that when he opens his eyes, the man he loves will be there, soft and warm and will smile at him like the break of sunlight once Derek coaxes him to consciousness. </p>
<p>There aren't enough words to convey the awe that Derek feels when Stiles defends him--when Stiles claims him. Stiles fights for what is his; and he'd been fighting for Derek for far too long without Derek realizing what it meant. </p>
<p>If Derek could, he'd tell Stiles that...he knew these things. </p>
<p>He tries to laugh more because of the look Stiles gets on his face when he does. </p>
<p>He tries to make sure that, even when he can't grasp the thread of logic that runs through Stiles, he makes Stiles feel as though he's heard. </p>
<p>He would give anything to be able to erase the past completely from himself, so that there isn't the flash of fond pain that follows when his shock at Stiles's public affection is written plain as day on his face. Stiles loves him. He knows, he knows. And he trusts Stiles to love him, in a way that he knows he hadn't, even when he'd loved enough to get his family killed. </p>
<p>Stiles has the entirety of Derek Hale in his hands: to break or mend as he chooses. </p>
<p>And there are times when Stiles breaks him. </p>
<p>Stiles will crack him open like a raw egg, and leave him feeling like he's about to pour out of his skin. But Stiles only breaks him in ways he'd been broken--and improperly healed--before. Stiles doesn't hurt him with carelessness; he hurts Derek with compassion. For the way he sees Derek struggling, and can surmise the shape of why. </p>
<p><i>You're a good man, Derek Hale.</i> </p>
<p>He is, and he isn't. Because if Derek Hale is a good man, he would be able to tell the man he loves how much he loves him--give him  all the reasons why, like they'd been gifted to him. </p>
<p>
  <i>I think you're the only person I would ever be brave enough to ask: </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Marry me?</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Now with a Spanish translation on Wattpad by Zunnyxx, which you can find <a href="https://www.wattpad.com/1005875715-reasons-why-i-love-you-cap%C3%ADtulo-%C3%BAnico?utm_source=android&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_content=share_published&amp;wp_page=create_on_publish&amp;wp_uname=zjxvadd&amp;wp_originator=VxZ%2BpRJKxbGtfmJyuxm6SGtCQK0e87sl%2BWoxtRfNeWSpXn8YYlO2okxHl8bOQFjLdwM9OtKyf8hU99FJi0SzZga9OJJUimuSaZok%2FJU69%2Ft%2BMbOwF%2BUDZ77IkHt3qFP4&amp;_branch_match_id=875242600729668908">here</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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